It’s a busy morning for the Kingdom in the international press. Driving the narrative: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Riyadh today and tomorrow (NYT | Bloomberg | CNN). We have the rundown in this morning’s news well and What We’re Tracking Today, above.

MEANWHILE- “Everybody in tech seems to want to make friends with Saudi Arabia right now,” the New York Times writes noting ongoing talks with Andreessen Horowitz and other investors to create a world-scale USD 40 bn AI investment fund. Together, the Kingdom’s AI and tech initiatives “easily dwarf those of most major nation-state investments, like Britain’s USD 100 mn pledge for the Alan Turing Institute.”

AND- NYT columnist Tom Friedman is back with Israel has a choice to make: Rafah or Riyadh. Oddly, he makes it through the whole piece without quoting a taxi or Uber driver.

PLUS- Bloomberg is out with another piece on the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 plans, this time citing unnamed officials as saying the Royal Commission for Riyadh City is scaling back its population target to 10 mn residents by 2030, down from an original goal of 15 mn.

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